


Finding Herself

by grey2510



Series: Light's Grace!verse [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angelic Possession, Demonic Possession, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fallen Angel Castiel, Family, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, POV Castiel, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4114969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/pseuds/grey2510
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas and Claire discuss Claire's parents, particularly Amelia.</p><p>Canon-divergent after 10x14 and follows the events of the previous parts of the Light's Grace!verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Herself

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to figure out for awhile how to deal with the Amelia question, but chronologically, this is a little bit of a back-track for me in terms of writing; I hope I've managed to keep this consistent with other parts of the series, but if I messed up something, let me know!
> 
> I also unabashedly borrowed a few things from 10x20; since I started the series after 10x14, I've been trying to incorporate some elements of the actual show since then.
> 
>  
> 
> **LG!V TIMELINE: July 12, 2015**  
> 

**July 12, 2015**

 

“Hey Cas?” Dean pops into the room, his hair still sleep-disheveled and his sweatpants low on his hips, revealing a thin strip of pale skin as he raises his arm to rub the back of his head, bringing the faded t-shirt up with it.

“Mm?” Castiel grumbles, grounding a palm into his eye and hauling himself slowly off of the bed.

“Claire isn’t working today, is she?”

Cas looks up, blinking away the sleep from his eyes, at the note of poorly-masked concern in Dean’s voice. For the summer, Claire has been working part-time retail at a store that apparently caters to youth such as herself because, as Claire had declared, _someone_ has to make honest money in this place and there was no way she’s going to just sit around in the bunker all day. Apparently, she even kind of likes her job at the “Hot Topical”—as Cas accidentally called it once, and as the bunker denizens all call it now amongst themselves—once she got over the fact that the store sells merchandise for Chuck’s books (which apparently hadn’t taken long: during her second week, she used her employee discount to buy a shirt for Dean as a joke that says “KEEP CALM AND CALL CASTIEL” with wings above the text; Cas had found the shirt interesting, Dean had looked murderous, and Sam had laughed for a full minute). But, looking at the clock on the nightstand—7:33—Cas knows Claire isn’t at work. It’s too early for a shift to start, and he’s fairly certain she said she has today off.

“I don’t believe so. Is she not in her room?”

“No, and she’s not in the kitchen or the library or the TV room.”

“Perhaps she went out?” Cas suggests, but he knows as well as Dean that it’s a hollow suggestion.

“Dude, she makes you look like a light sleeper. No way she’d just get up and head out this early for no reason.”

“Is her car still here?” Cas reaches for his cellphone next to the clock, thumbing through his few contacts quickly to find Claire’s number. As he waits for the phone to ring, Dean gives him a silent look to tell him he’s going to check the garage. Just as Dean ducks back into the hallway, the phone goes to Claire’s voicemail. Cas groans and hangs up, but opens the messenger app to send her a text: **We’re wondering where you are. We don’t mean to pry, but we want to know you’re safe.**

“Car’s still here!” Dean calls back, his voice reaching the room before he slides back on bare feet. “Any luck?” he nods to the phone.

“Voicemail. I sent her a text. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere without her car, so she must be somewhere in the bunker.”

“This place is fucking huge,” Dean grouses, clearly mentally cataloguing all the various rooms and hideouts tucked away under the abandoned factory.

“Well, if she’s on the premises, we probably don’t have any cause for alarm.”

“Cas, man, this place is filled with magical crap that’s probably all cursed and shit. Sam ‘n I found this place years ago and we still don’t know all the stuff that’s in here, despite the nerd’s love of archiving.”

“She knows better than to ‘poke around’ in the storerooms, especially after the poetry incident,” Cas defends, thinking of the torturous day when everyone had been forced to speak in ballad meter and rhyme; Sam and Cas had accidentally knocked over and broken a curse box with a book of poetry inside while searching for a set of hunters’ journals relevant to a case they’d been working. Thankfully, a simple general counter curse had been enough to break the spell.

Dean grimaces at the memory, even though he had lorded it over all of them that he had found it the easiest to communicate under the curse, despite Claire and Sam’s attempts to mock him for being such a poet—mocking isn’t nearly as effective when one spends thirty seconds tongue-tied trying to come up with an appropriately insulting rhyme in alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter. (After the fact, Dean said he had just imagined everything sung to the tune of "Gilligan's Island".)

“All right, so where would she be?”

A thought occurs to Cas and he pads over to the closet for shoes and jeans. “I think I know.”

Dean looks at the former angel quizzically, one eyebrow raised. “Care to share with the class?”

Cas gives the hunter a small, but hopefully reassuring smile. “Can I let you know in a bit if I am wrong?”

Dean’s green eyes search Castiel’s face before locking into his own blue eyes. Dean sighs out, although he doesn’t seem wholly convinced. “Yeah, I guess,” he concedes, his confusion and reluctance heavy in his voice. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go start breakfast.”

Before they go their separate waves, Cas takes Dean’s hand and squeezes it gently. “She’ll be ok,” he assures him.

 

 

The chipped concrete risers in the north stairwell of the abandoned factory are the only ones that still have railings or haven’t completely deteriorated into a hazardous excuse for a staircase. Even so, Castiel is reluctant to use the metal railings for support, having discovered not long after he fell that he does not enjoy medical shots and therefore does not want a tetanus booster; instead his hand lightly skims the cracked brick and concrete walls for balance as he makes his way up. Dust shakes loose and twice he comes to the verge of sneezing, but never actually follows through.

On the third floor, he leaves the stairwell and enters the factory floor. Most of the windows are cracked or have panes missing, and there are remnants of machinery cluttering the center—old metal tables and various contraptions that are rusted beyond usability or recognition. In the opposite corner, the floor-to-ceiling windows have been completely destroyed, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

Cas watches the lone figure sitting on the edge, her feet dangling down, her blonde hair hanging limply in the already humid summer air. As though she can read his thoughts, her hands come up and quickly tie back the tresses into a messy bun, a style he is sure is much cooler in the heat.

Not wanting to startle her by approaching too closely, he calls out her name gently from about ten feet away as he nears her. She turns, and her blue eyes are red rimmed and surprisingly devoid of makeup.

“Hey, Castiel,” she greets, her voice raw. Cas pauses at the use of his full name, which has been happening less and less frequently of late.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asks cautiously. The teen shrugs, and Castiel takes a seat beside her about a foot away. He, too, dangles his feet off the edge and looks out over the small town of Lebanon. There isn’t much to see, but at least there is a view here, unlike in the confines of the bunker. He thinks of the first time he and Claire had come up here, when they were exploring the factory after learning that Dean and Sam hadn’t done so in all their time here. Claire had adopted her deepest voice as they looked out and intoned, “Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.” Cas had been pleased to change up his usual response and had commented, “I understand that reference.”

The silence between them stretches, broken only by Cas taking out his phone and quickly texting Dean, letting him know that he’d found Claire. He re-pockets the phone just as Claire draws up her legs and wraps her arms around them.

“It’s their birthday,” she whispers. Castiel frowns, trying to associate the date with anyone he knows and coming up empty. “Well,” she explains further, her voice a little stronger, “not really. My dad’s was two days ago and my mom’s is the 14th, so they always used to just celebrate together in the middle: July 12th.”

“Oh,” Cas remarks, knowing that it is a completely inadequate response but not knowing what else to say. “Claire,” he begins carefully as her words turn over in his mind, “do you know where your mother is?”

Claire’s jaw sets and her eyes stay locked on the horizon. She inhales deeply before replying, “No, I haven’t heard from her in years. Not since I was at my grandma’s.” She draws her knees in even closer, the soles of her shoes lightly scritching on the dust and chips on the floor. “I kind of hated her for a long time for leaving me, but I think I get it now.”

Cas turns his head to the teen, raising an eyebrow. “You do?”

“Yeah. We were really religious, you know?” She huffs a small laugh, realizing who she’s speaking to, and Cas gives a bittersweet smile. “Well, I guess you do know. When you were trying to get my dad to believe in you, she thought he was going crazy. There were doctors, and pills, and fights. My parents _never_ fought before that, but my mom wasn’t really mad, just scared and worried. I didn’t know that then, though. And then…then my dad left and my mom didn’t know what happened to him.”

“I’m so sorry, Claire,” Cas offers, looking down at the hands in his lap. Jimmy’s hands, once upon a time.

“I know.” Claire tucks a stray piece of hair back into the bun. “But then my dad came back, and he was different. Like, we had dinner and he didn’t want to say grace. I didn’t understand why. Then there were the demons, and I was your vessel and my mom was possessed. My mom broke.”

Castiel turns his head sharply. “Amelia was unharmed by the possession. I would have healed her if she had been injured.”

“Not that kind of broken,” Claire shakes her head. “But my mom had spent so long trying to convince my dad that he was going crazy, that there were no angels. Then he came back and you came back and there were demons and she had to accept that everything she’d been saying, everything she’d been telling herself to keep herself going, was wrong.”

Castiel nods. “It’s often difficult for those living the ‘civilian’ life to accept the dangers of this world.”

“But it’s more than that,” Claire asserts. “I think if it had just been the shit that goes bump in the night, my mom would’ve been ok. She’s super strong, but…this was about faith.”

“I see.” Cas thinks back to the early days of getting to know the Winchesters: Dean’s denial of Castiel’s very existence and that he had a role to play in Heaven’s fate; Sam’s excitement at the affirmation of his faith, only to have Castiel nearly reject his offer of friendship because he was the boy with the demon blood. It is a wonder they have reached where they are today at all. “She was a believer who denied what she believed, and then saw the truth.”

“It’s more than that,” the girl repeats, and she finally looks to Cas. “Her husband was chosen to be an angel’s vessel. Her daughter was then chosen to be an angel’s vessel. But my mom? She got possessed by a demon. I think she thought…”

“…she thought she was being punished,” Cas finishes with sorrow. “Claire, demonic possession is not a reflection of a person’s character. Sam has been possessed. Dean became a demon. Bobby was once possessed. They are some of the best people I know.”

“I know that now. But my mom didn’t. Doesn’t. So after a couple months, she dropped me off at her mom’s. She tried so hard to keep it together, but…I think she thought she wasn’t fit to take care of me, that there was something wrong with her.”

“There was nothing ‘wrong’ with your mother. The ability for a human body to be a suitable vessel for an angel is often determined by bloodlines. You and your father could host an angel’s Grace, but I do not think your mother’s bloodline could. That is also not a reflection of her character, strength, or goodness. That’s just…genetics.” His mouth quirks at the thought of such a intersection of science and faith, especially considering how much time and energy humans seem to place on separating the two, as though they are mutually exclusive.

Claire studies him, taking in this information. “I didn’t know it was through bloodlines,” she remarks, and Castiel, though not always quick on these social cues, recognizes this as a rhetorical statement that does not require a response.

“Your mom did not deserve what happened to her. Neither did you, and I blame myself for much of it. I don’t know if I can ever apologize for what I did to your family.”

Claire nods. “It’s ok.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Claire smiles bitterly. “No, it isn’t,” she agrees. “But I have to tell myself it is, you know?”

“I do.”

“Cas?”

“Mm?”

“Do you know…do you know if my mom is still alive?”

Cas sighs. “I’m not sure anymore. Do you remember when I said that as an angel I could pick up on longing?” The teen nods, and Castiel continues, “I would occasionally pick up on a prayer or longing from her, mostly in the year or so after we left you. Eventually, the prayers became less frequent before stopping altogether. They also became more and more bitter, probably because I did not answer her prayers.”

“I know what that’s like.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Castiel covers his eyes with a hand for a moment. “I should have thought to check in on you and your mother long before I did. I had promised your father I would take care of you, make sure you were safe. I failed in that. I think I was too ‘wrapped up in my own shit’, as Dean would say. And then later, I was ashamed, and so I stayed away.”

“I forgive you, Cas, you know that, right? Even if it’s not really ok, I’m not angry anymore.”

Cas looks at the girl next to him, feels his breath hitch. “I don’t know if I deserve that.”

“Maybe you don’t, but I forgive you anyway.”

“Thank you, Claire,” he chokes out, his voice heavy with emotion. The girl scoots closer to him, and despite the heat, she leans against his shoulder. “Claire?” The girl twists her head up so she can look into his eyes. “Do you want to find your mother?”

The teen’s eyes drop, then stare back out over to the horizon. “I don’t know. Yes. But…not today. Some day. I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. I don’t know if she’s ready for that.”

“We will help you find her whenever you are ready,” Cas promises, and he cautiously loops his arm around her shoulders.

Around them, the Kansas morning continues to come to life. In the distance, they can make out the slow crawl of cars down the main town road, and the frenzied zip along the highway overpass. Cicadas start their hum, and the humidity makes their shirts cling to their bodies. They stay for what seems like hours, but is perhaps only another twenty minutes, before Cas gets up, and offers a hand to Claire, bringing her back down to the bunker for breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda struggled with this one. I wanted to work in Amelia, provide some justification for why she's not in the picture, but honestly, I didn't really want her to actually be in the series. And I thought it would be interesting to have her fate be psychological, not supernatural (well, kinda...understandable psych trauma as a result of the supernatural, rather than death by Gregori like in the show). I think I came up with something plausible that doesn't make Amelia seem like a totally bad person / bad mother for abandoning Claire, but feel free to disagree. :)
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
